“Fragile” 24×24, oil on canvas Buy Now
I’m the kind of person who gets ready to go out in fifteen minutes. I cook gourmet meals in less than an hour. When using the microwave, I’ve got no patience for anything but full power. I walk quickly through airports. Dilly dallying is on my list of the gravest of sins.
When I am five minutes early for an event I feel late. I have one speed. I am rarely careful. I’m obsessed with time even as I know it’s partly or wholly illusion.
Which is why it is difficult for me to sit on something, to leave it alone and then come back to it. I created this floral painting months ago but never put it on my website because it never felt done to me even though all the parts were there. It felt overly-sentimental, a little tacky.
So this morning it was my mission to revisit it. I worked on it longer than I’ve worked on most of these daily paintings. I photographed it for the post and then promptly worked on it some more, photographed again, and so on.
My patience was tested. Eventually I settled for running the palette knife across the surface in an attempt to combine some of the abstract elements of my work that I appreciate the most with a clearly representational image. I wanted it to feel blurry, a little haphazard and yet still a recognizable image. I must admit I was very much inspired by some of the other artists doing this 31 day challenge with me. Donna has been doing some beautifully rich florals with cold wax medium that made me want to work on this one today. And Gretchen wrote a thought-provoking and harrowing post entitled “No More Pink” in which she laments the loss of her friend to breast cancer and asks us to consider the efficacy of pink campaigns and the idea bravery itself. I think it was her post that caused me to run my knife through my pink flowers.
Today, day 23, I am bursting with gratitude for my small community of 31ers. I feel far less tired than I did yesterday, and I’m slowly, ever so slowly (which is more than a little frustrating for someone like me), learning the power of wait time– letting things simmer before releasing them into this beautiful and broken world.
Reminder: every painting this month is 20% off the day it posts!
Ha! I’m glad I was the inspiration to run the knife through the pink! 🙂 I love the blue greens intermingled and the subtle color changes. I am the same with my painting.I have to tell myself to stop. When I do, I’m happier every time with the outcome. But it’s difficult to do when you’re a fast painter.
I have enjoyed watching everyone’s artistic explorations here. Although I am quite a bit the same in the walking, etc business….I am such a terribly slow writer [I mean, an outlaw band can make a complete getaway in the time it takes me to finish a poem. Worst sign of all is when I have to pull out the rhyming dictionary….when that happens I know my Muse has hit the road for the day…and it happens too often].
My last submittal, Day 31, is going to be about ‘time’, by the way. I started on it 6 or 7 months ago, so I think I’ll make the deadline….well, really I started on it Day 2, and I do think I will finish it for Day 31. A short story, non-western, and I plan to submit it to the Tennessee Williams Literary Festival contest for short story fiction.
You have delivered up some beautiful art this month.
Building on Gretchen’s comment here, as well as your thoughts. I love the messaging here, the simple but intriguing shapes, the blending of colors, the play. I can see you are trying to get away with as much as possible in blurring the forms of the flowers. A much less clunky (but also leaves a lot out) way to say this is that I adore the impressionistic feel of this piece.